AUTOMATIC REGISTER CONTROLS

Flexo

In May, 2002, the results of a year long study into register control on Flexo CI presses was presented at the annual forum of the Flexographic Technical Association.

Download FTA Study Here.

The study found that a typical 8 color job takes 12 minutes just to bring into register, and uses 1100-1200 feet of material in the process. There was no difference between older geared and newer gearless presses. Using new register control technology available from BST Pro Mark®, register was set to a tolerance of ±0.004” in less than three minutes and using 50-100 feet of material. The study found that a typical CI Flexo press running film and producing 20 jobs a week could realize annual cost savings of $121,000, plus generate 139 additional hours of productive time.

Download FTA Study Here.

BST Pro Mark® now offers two ways to realize the benefits of this remarkable technology:

Closed-Loop Register Control Integrated Into A Web Inspection System
Our BST Premius Digital web inspection and print management system performs closed-loop make-ready AND running register control on CI presses with motorized drives, geared or gearless.

Offset

BST Pro Mark® introduces the AR400 automatic register control system for web offset printing presses. This system will monitor register color and cut-off in real time and manage corrective action on the printing press. The AR400 has been designed for three distinct applications in commercial web offset applications:

• Automatic monitoring and control of lateral and linear print-to-print registration

• Automatic monitoring and control of print-to-fold registration

• Automatic register of front-to-reverse side printing.

The AR400 uses a compact, forgiving sensing head and a tiny 1/2mm micro dots which require significantly less space than other systems. The micro dots may be placed in either lateral or linear direction on the web, and will work at any running speed. The system automatically detects any deviation of register in the print and sends corrective signals to the press or servo drives. System I/O supports a wide range of protocols for connection of the register control to the printing machine.

The AR400 will monitor and hold registration to an accuracy of 0.0004" in print and 0.008 in print-to-fold registration, and is capable of controlling up to 10 colors running at press speeds over 3600 fpm.

Use of the AR400 has been shown to result in:

• Minimal set-up time and waste during job start-up
• Reduced waste during roll changes
• Consistent quality of register and print quality during the run.

The AR400 also features

• Real time display of the micro dots
• Graphic touch screen display and user interface
• Manual register adjustment via input of a desired value.
• Real time trending output.

To request information click here.

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